"Turkey's governing party failed to win key opposition support on Wednesday for plans to lift a ban on the wearing of Islamic head scarves at universities, a deeply divisive issue in a country with secular laws and a Muslim population.

The conflict over the head scarf reflects a struggle over Turkey's direction between the Islamic-oriented government, which argues for more religious freedom, and critics who believe the country's secular principles are in peril.

In Turkey, women are free to wear Islamic head scarves, but students, teachers and state-employed officials are not."

Syria has banned face-covering Islamic veils from the country’s universities.
The surprise move comes as similar moves in Europe – including controversial calls in Britain for a ban on burkas – have sparked cries of discrimination against Muslims.
The crackdown was ordered by the secular government in Damascus amid fears of increasing Islamic extremism among young Muslim students.
Syria is not a Muslim country. An official at the ministry says the ban affects public and private universities and aims to protect the country's secular identity.

"A National Assembly committee analyzing Bill 94, which would make it illegal for Islamic women to wear the niqab in government offices, schools and hospitals, resumes sitting Tuesday. The hearing will hear from experts on the topic.

Quebec Justice Minister Jean-Marc Fournier has said the bill is “balanced.” But the Parti Quebecois has called for a ban on all ostentatious religious signs, including the hijab Islamic head covering, in the public sector and finds Bill 94 too meek. Islamic groups say Bill 94 singles them out and is discriminatory."

Rowan Williams

"Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams has deplored attempts by governments in Europe to prohibit Muslim women from publicly wearing the burqa, a garment that covers the entire body.

'Governments should have better things to do than ban the burqa,' Williams, the leader of the worldwide Anglican Communion, told an interfaith meeting organized by the National Council of Churches in India at its headquarters in Nagpur, during a visit to India.

..."I believe that the state ought not to be addressing issues like these. Instead, it should leave such concerns to the religious communities," stated Williams at the Oct. 14 meeting in Nagpur. He described the French ban as "a sign of being overanxious."

More than 100 church leaders, led by the NCCI's president, Methodist Bishop Taranath Sagar, and Bishop Purely Lyngdoh, moderator of the Church of North India, attended the meeting alongside Muslims and Sikhs, and members of the Hindu community.

"We are glad that the archbishop spoke out clearly on the burqa controversy. He is very objective and respects other faiths," A. Majid Parekh, a Muslim leader in Nagpur, told ENInews after listening to the Anglican leader.

Williams told ENInews that the controversy generated by bans on the burqa, the Sikh turban and the Christian cross in some European countries, "shows the extension of secularism too far. This ought to be resisted. The communities should have the right to decide on such issues." Williams said he had protested when a British Airways employee was told she should not wear her necklace cross visibly while at work.

He told the meeting that attacks against migrants in Europe were not the result of Christian prejudice against non-Christians but a "crude nationalist prejudice against migrants and outsiders."

On the link between religions and terrorism, the head of the worldwide Anglican Communion said that terrorism is a product of "bad" religion. "The positive affirmation of faith in God and respect for one another is the solution for it," he stated."

The mayor of Lleida, Àngel Ros, said yesterday in an interview to El món a RAC1 that the Muslim community in Lleida "isn't in any process of radicalization" after the prohibition, to women wearing the full Islamic veil, of entering municipal facilities. The ban, which also extends to other objects that cover their faces like masks and helmets, has been accepted even by some of the Muslim community. According to Ros, "this has been a clear sign that not everything can be allowed in the integration process." 
 
... the socialist leader believes that "immigration should be controlled because the welfare state can not assume all", while generating "activity and wealth in countries from where immigration comes from." 
"Immigrants must accept the roles of the host society" and understand that "go with the face covered in a civic center is not a sign of coexistence," he said.

A Canadian court issued a ruling today on whether Muslim women can be forced to remove their niqab while testifying and, lo and behold, both sides of the debate are happy. That's because the Ontario Court of Appeal determined that a witness is allowed to refuse to bare her face unless -- unless! -- the fairness of the trial depends on it. The judges' ruling reads in part:

There is no getting around the reality that in some cases, particularly those involving trial by jury where a witness's credibility is central to the outcome, a judge will have a difficult decision to make. If, in the specific circumstances, the accused's fair trial right can be honoured only by requiring the witness to remove the niqab, the niqab must be removed if the witness is to testify.

A 32-year-old Muslim woman, who accused her cousin and uncle of sexual abuse when she was a child, sparked the ruling when she refused to remove her veil on the stand. Her lawyer argued, "Really, it's all about making people feel welcome in our judicial system at a time when they're undergoing significant stress -- for example, by being a complainant in a sexual assault case." Indeed, a blanket courtroom ban on veiling could cause Muslim women to avoid the justice system altogether.

Some 1,000 people took to the streets of the Kosovo capital yesterday to protest against a government ban on wearing Muslim headscarves in public schools.
“Our demand is that this ban to be suspended as soon as possible,” said Bujar Xhikoti, a representative of the organisers of the protest.
The organisers, relatively unknown non-governmental “Join Us” movement, warned the protests would be intensified if the ban was not suspended in a month.
Carrying signs saying Prime Minister “Hashim Thaci do not discriminate against us because we are Muslims” and chanting “Allahu Akbar” , the protesters demanded that the government allow the wearing of religious symbols in schools.
More than 90% of Kosovo’s population are Muslims, but Western values and culture dominate in the society.

France's top legal authority has approved a law banning full-face veils in public, the last hurdle for the ban, which aims to protect women's rights but has been criticised as stigmatising Muslims.

The Constitutional Council, which had previously warned that banning the veil may be unconstitutional, said it approved the version of the bill, which has been passed by both Houses of Parliament, after a final review.

It judged however that the ban, due to enter force early next year, would be unenforceable in public places of worship, where it may violate religious freedoms.

"The ban on covering the face in public places cannot constrain the practice of religious freedom in places of worship that are open to the public," the council said in its judgement.

The black burqa hides the face of a young Moroccan, 18, called Sumaya. Sohaib sleeps in his arms. Her baby. He was born in Tudela, on Wednesday September 22nd, at five in the afternoon. Right of Sumaya, is Benaomar Rachid, 33, her husband. Rachid has not hesitated to answer this newspaper's questions and explain why his wife has to live under a burka.
On Saturday, September 25, Said, 12, and his brother Hamza, 7, waited impatiently beside the gate that guards the village mosque. Said explains, the weekends, the Muslim children of the city and the region come to study the Koran and learn to read Arabic. Although Said was born in Morocco, is expressed with a local accent. "What are you a journalist? Why do you want to interview the imam Mustafa?" Said asks and answers a frantic pace. "My father works on site. I want to be a policeman." Hamsa is impatient at the delay of the magnet and starts throwing stones at the gate. "It is showering," says Said. "He can not hear because the mosque is very large, has five doors," apology to the magnet. The minutes pass. Said adds the release. This time, the stones fall inside a courtyard.

The interior is a ship enabled with two carpeted rooms, the largest for men's prayers, on the other, for women's. Villafranca's neighbors believe that is one of the largest mosques in northern Spain. Across the walls are the desks and blackboard, where small study. "It's cold!" says Hamza. The minutes pass. The imam does not make an appearance. At that time, a Moroccan appears. Mohamed tells the boys that the magnet is traveling in Morocco, says he is managing his wife's papers to bring. Hamsa Said and attentive listening and translating. Then, playing away to an irrigation canal. The journalist took the opportunity and asked the newcomer by Rachid Benaomar and his wife. "They live in front of the Civil Guard barracks," says Mohamed, "but he is not the imam," corrected. 

The uneasiness among the residents of this town of three thousand inhabitants began in April. The locals could not believe it. They had just crossed the street with the silent pace of a "faceless woman". And the concern evolved into fear and worry. The deputy mayor of Villafranca, Enrique Marín San Miguel acknowledges that it surprised them. "Never before has there been a similar case despite the increase in Muslim population in the area which reaches now 22%," he says. "We are concerned. Do not know if this will go further. That woman lives in a prison. Do not you see the eyes. The municipalities can not prohibit the burqa. It should be done by the Government of Navarra."

You may have run across them through the streets of Paris ... They, are the Niqabitch. Two young woman in her twenties who had the idea of shock parade to show their disapproval of the law on banning the full veil in public, adopted by the MPs on September 14.

In an article published Thursday on Rue89, they explained: "To wear the burqa would have been too simple. So we asked ourselves the following question: how would the authorities deal with women wearing a burqa and a Minishort? And to clarify: "We do not seek to attack or degrade the image of Muslim fundamentalists-all the trip. But rather to challenge the elected officials of the Republic who went after the passing of this law that is believed to be largely unconstitutional ... And finally, LOL it is not (funny) to denounce (this way)? "

These two activists also point out they do not feel directly concerned by the law, therefore, have marched to the Ministry of Defence or the Socialist Party. Will this cause any reaction in high places? In any case, within hours, their work has spread across the Net like wildfire ... and is indeed a bomb.

The Sunday Telegraph has established that three UK institutions have introduced a compulsory veil policy when girls are walking to or from school. They are:

• Madani Girls' School in east London;
• Jamea Al Kauthar in Lancaster;
• Jameah Girls' Academy in Leicester.

All three are independent, fee-paying, single-sex schools for girls aged 11 to 18. Critics warned that the spectacle of burka-clad pupils entering and leaving the schools at the start and end of the day could damage relations between Muslim and non-Muslim communities.

Turkey's prime minister said on Wednesday a law that prohibits women wearing the Muslim headscarf at university was against freedom of belief, in his strongest hint yet the AK Party might try again to lift the ban.

Turkey's Constitutional Court struck down in 2008 an attempt by the ruling AK Party to remove the ban. But after voters approved constitutional changes in September to overhaul the court, AK Party officials have put the sensitive issue back on the government's agenda.

"We agree with society on the headscarf issue," Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan said in a speech to university students in Istanbul, which was broadcast live.

"We do not want to disappoint our youth. There is no sense in being so interventionist in freedom of belief and education anymore," Erdogan said.

His comments come months before a election that will herald a new constitution if his party wins.

Wearing the Muslim headscarf is a touchy issue in European Union candidate Turkey, an overwhelmingly Muslim nation with a strictly secular constitution.

"Activists in Chechnya, where Russia has waged two wars against separatists in the past 16 years, said intimidation reached a peak during the fasting month of Ramadan. There was also a crackdown on violations of Islamic law such as the sale of food before sundown and any sale of alcohol, they said.

The activists who spoke from Chechnya insisted on anonymity because they said they feared reprisals.

Threats tapered off, they said, as Ramadan ended in mid-September. Men in Islamic clothes had been approaching women whom they deemed unsuitably dressed to pull them by the arm, an offense according to Chechen custom.

A woman activist said that incidents she recorded in August included a woman being taken away by men in a jeep for wearing a skirt they regarded as see-through and no head scarf in Grozny, the Chechen capital. Other men handed out leaflets to women advising them how to dress, she said.

According to Chechen tradition, women should not wear sleeveless clothes; they usually wear a strip of headscarf more like a hairband than a hijab. Until recently, it was considered the prerogative of male family members to decide their style of dress, but Islamic activists, with support from Mr. Kadyrov, are calling for much fuller cover.

....The New York-based Human Rights Watch said in August that women’s rights were being violated by efforts to impose an Islamic dress code. It said women without headscarves or in immodest dress had been attacked with paintball guns in Grozny.

Najwa Malha began classes at the same institute where she finished the previous term, Gerardo Diego de Pozuelo de Alarcón (Madrid). The case of this child, a Spanish Muslim, shot to limelight after Malha had to go almost to the end of the course from her institute, Camilo Jose Cela, after going to class with hijab (Islamic veil).

The family appealed the decision to the Ministry of Education, which now considers the center and the administration acted properly. The next step is to go to court. The family will file an appeal before the Administrative Courts of Madrid, as their attorney, Ivan Jimenez Aybar, said yesterday.

The lawyer filed a motion in May to the Community's Department of Education in which it considered that the decision to take her to a new school, violated her dignity and rights (both of identity and religious freedom) and the internal rules of the institute. The Madrid region has responded with a resolution, dated Sept 20th. In the text, seen by El Pais, the Ministry of Education reports that there is no contradiction between forbidding her to wear a headscarf and the rights of students to have their identity, dignity or religious convictions respected.

Nor does it infringe the right to education of Malha, because the Community offered her "immediately" the possibility to be schooled in another center with different rules. He added that not wearing the head covering does not violate any rights of students, but "a simple rule on the clothing of students."

Aybar Jimenez is a lawyer, but also a professor at the Autonomous University of Barcelona. He believes that the community considers the "political criteria above the legal ones" with this decision. "I firmly believe that the Judges once they have listened to our arguments, aimes at defending Najwa's right of religious freedom, which has been ignored, intentionally and unlawfully, by the Community of Madrid".

"Malaysia's Islamic opposition party said Wednesday that a vote by French lawmakers to outlaw the full-face veil had angered Muslims and could trigger terrorist attacks.

The Pan-Malaysia Islamic Party (PAS) said France should adopt a path of engagement with Muslims instead of introducing the controversial bill.

'It will widen the efforts of many organisations to narrow the gap between the Western and Islamic world,' PAS deputy president Nasaruddin Mat Isa told a press conference.

'We hope it will not spark further terror activities. The French move has sparked anger around the Islamic world.'

Nasaruddin said the ban violated individual rights, and that Muslim women should be allowed to wear what they want in France, just as non-Muslim French women are permitted to dress as they wish in Muslim-majority Malaysia.

'They can come here and wear their bikinis,' he said.

PAS lawmaker Hatta Ramli said he did not accept arguments that the burqa -- a full-body covering with a mesh over the face, and the niqab, a full-face veil that leaves an opening for the eyes -- suppress women's rights.

'I don't think that holds water,' he said."

"France's Parliament banned the burqa, niqab and other full-body robes worn by some Muslim women, by passing a law forbidding people to conceal their faces in public.

The bill passed Tuesday after a final vote in the Senate, the upper house of Parliament, and is scheduled to come into force after a six-month observation period. It has already passed the National Assembly. At the Parliament's request, the law will be reviewed by France's Constitutional Council before it is formally promulgated.

'Showing one's face is a question of dignity and equality in our republic,' said Justice Minister Michéle Alliot-Marie during Tuesday's debate in the Senate.